In this part of my reflection, I'm going to focus a bit more on the students themselves. While I spent a lot of time breaking down my own strategy, thinking process, learning process and shortcomings I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the students themselves.
I think I've mentioned before that MHS is wildly different from any school I've ever attended or even had close experiences with. Because of this unknown quantity, I went into this experience with some trepidation. This has almost entirely been wiped away at this point but while I feel like I have an experience deficit as an instructor, I also have an experience deficit in terms of the students.
To keep my philosophical ideas brief, I think it's good to have high expectations of students. I think it will force me to work harder and hopefully get students to take learning more seriously. That said, I feel like there's a negotiation at MHS between high expectations and realistic expectations that is frankly pretty frustrating for me. While many students work really hard and want to improve I feel like there's a pervasive culture of complacency among many students. Now this might simply be the fact that they're 15-18 years old. I remember doing well in school but at the same time putting in the minimal amount of effort it would take to get a B. So I think it's related that I not only have to have a good answer for "Why are we learning this?" and believe it. That belief needs to come through in every lesson and class. I want and need to teach with urgency. For whatever reason, this mentality gets me psyched up. In short, I feel like I've found a good fit with the challenges presented through this school. However, there are things that truly bother me about this pervasive complacency.
Classroom Behavior: Even if students are assigned a task and asked to participate and stay busy there's a distinct feeling of chaos in almost every class. Maybe it's just that I'm more sensitive to it in the position of teaching but there always seems to be movement, conversation and other general things that act as distractions.
Cell phones & Music: These are everywhere and also what I would consider a major distraction. Despite asking politely or warnings of punishment, students just ignore and text and talk constantly. In addition, lots of students have headphones in all day with music blasting. The common defense of allowing this behavior is "pick your battles." Again, maybe my expectations are too high in relation to reality but this is a non-negotiable for me and drives me absolutely crazy.
Group work: I went to schools that were clique-ish. I really understand the psychology behind it. Sometimes it's a matter of comfort, avoiding conflict or a conflict starter -- however, when put in groups it somehow always worked. We did what we were assigned and moved on with our lives and our particular groups. When I assigned new groups in Mr. D's class for Day 1 you would have thought I had cancelled Christmas. Loud complaints to taunts to outright refusals to work with some people happened in every class. It was truly amazing and concerning considering the fact that these kids live in a very densely populated area. Tolerance and group work does not seem to be something many students value.
Other than these issues, I find the students of MHS to be good kids and capable of a lot more than the status quo. That said, where does the motivation come from? It can't only be the teacher, or the school or the parents. At some point it has to come from the students themselves but I wonder what the best practices are from a teacher in this situation. I feel like I have a very good model in Mr. D but I have high hopes in building a community of learning. Just trying to figure out what to start with.
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